I hope everyone had a merry Christmas. We had an interesting one, by dint of more snow than I've seen around here in awhile. After we finished opening presents, Laura and I cooked quiche for breakfast; we usually just do leftover dessert from the night before, so this was different. Then we went out and shoveled. Because the blue van and Marshall's car are parked on the street, right in front of our driveway didn't get plowed, so we got to shovel about five feet of the street, too. Then we went over to Grandpa's and shoveled his driveway and walkways and porches, not because he was in a hurry to go anywhere, but because he's stubborn and would have went out and done it himself. On our way there and back, we saw about eight cars off the road, and this is a stretch of only about four miles or so.

Pet Peeve: I don't understand the person who is well aware of how bad the roads are being as how he or she is driving on them - and they've been bad because we had a day of sleet first, so the plows haven't been able to scrape them clean - and also sees cars in ditches or snow drifts literally every mile, and not only is driving the speed limit, but is actually speeding and passing people. I don't even understand that kind of idiocy.

Yesterday my dad and I had to shovel again. Today I'm going to have to shovel again, and we'll probably go over and shovel Grandpa's again. Apparently, he was trying to go somewhere yesterday (where?!) and couldn't get out.

Not that we're usually clamoring to get out of the house on Christmas or even the day after, but it's different knowing that you can't get out. I haven't gotten stir-crazy yet, and I still have a lot of stuff I want to do today (list to follow), but tomorrow? I'll probably want to get out of the house, and probably won't be able to. Sarah's going to end up having to cancel her birthday party because we're supposed to continue to get snow through Tuesday

I didn't ask for much for Christmas, but I got some things I didn't ask for that were totally great. My parents got me a Latin dictionary for the computer, which I'm really excited about because paper Latin dictionaries are pretty expensive; they also got me one of those cushions that have little arms that prop you up in bed to read, and I've wanted one for years and years, so that was awesome. I also got a French press and a lot of different coffees, so I'm fairly awash in that. I was going to save my stocking chocolate for our post-Christmas movie day, but it's hard to say when we're going to be able to do that, so I may just eat it.

I had the time, so I was futzing around on Photoshop last night and made a new desktop, since I don't actually have that many. I don't feel as comfortable with a larger palette like that; I never know how to position the images and build up the background, so I have a lot of desktops I started and scrapped because they looked bad. But I was pretty pleased with this one, and I'm uploading it for Holly. :) (I don't recall Catherine squeeing over Picard and Crusher, so I don't think she'd be that interested, but hey, maybe she wants a hot pink shippy squee desktop, IDK!)



(Click for full size.)

It's Christmas Eve eve! When I was a kid, and my year hinged around this time of year, this was the day filled with the most torment. I would make myself a countdown calendar to Christmas on Thanksgiving, and cross off the days - if I'd known that actual calendars existed, and not only did they count down to Christmas, but also gave you a piece of chocolate on each day? I don't even know. It's probably a good thing my parents hid their existence. But by the time I got to the day before Christmas Eve, I could hardly stand waiting anymore. You might think Christmas Eve was worse, being the day before and all, but we had a big holiday meal and I had opening a single present to look forward to; it was always this antepenultimate* day that tested my patience the most.

If things go as planned, I will go see Avatar today. Eee! Although not in 3D; I'm not ready to tax my eyeballs and brain in such a way, considering I still have a hard time with hand-held cameras and sometimes even just big screens. We had been talking about waiting to do a double-feature with Sherlock Holmes after Christmas, but those two movies don't really work for me, mostly because Avatar is so long. It would be like going to see another movie after watching one of the Lord of the Rings movies, unless that other movie was also one of the Lord of the Rings movies (I did two in a row, but never pulled off the whole trilogy, sadface).

Every time a big movie like this comes out, I wonder what the Drafthouse would have done for it, what special drink they would have concocted, what new item on the menu, whatever. For the second Pirates, they had a live Pirate band and tropical frozen drinks; for the Chronicles of Narnia, to enter the individual theater, you had to walk through a wardrobe with the back cut out, into which they put a bunch of fake Christmas trees, and they had Turkish Delight on the menu; for Hot Fuzz, they came around at the end of the show and gave everyone a free mini-donut. I really miss the Drafthouse.

*Did you really think I'd pass up a chance to use "antepenultimate" in casual conversation? What a fantastic word. Seriously, like, does anyone really need a word that means "next to the next to last?" At least just "penultimate" has legit reasons to occasionally pop up, you know? Oh, Romans.

Wow, have the last two weeks been both very busy and very boring. Grading, writing, readings, etc. Now the end is near, and I just have to finish my last script and read/grade the students' final revisions, and to home on Saturday (Huzzah!).

UT Laura and I are making Christmas tins filled with cookies and sweets for the gang this week. I haven't ever done Christmas baking on my own; only ever helped my mom with hers, so this should be exciting. And probably expensive, but that's okay. Right now I'm making sugar cookies shaped like trees, magic bars, Santa's whiskers (coconut and cherry), peanut butter balls, and maybe one other thing. I'm thinking either fudge, which is super-easy, or peppermint bark, which is also easy. It may come down to which is cheaper, but I'll have to see what the rest runs me.

There are so many movies coming out that I want to see, which is always the problem with December. I'm trying to decide if I want to see movies based on people wot I like (Cate, Kate, the Damon, etc), or movies I think will score big with the Oscars (Dreamgirls, Flags/Letters). We'll probably end up seeing Night at the Museum, because it looks fun and holiday-y, and I'd still like to see The Queen, and Pan's Labyrinth. Choices, choices.